Skeleton Women
by xUnfastenedxFlannelx
Summary: In a world without a war, Azula is born crownless in exile and Ty Lee is born stuck in a dead end small town. At fourteen, the only thing the sweet naivete and cold femme fatale have in common is their search for a way to counteract the accident of birth... but when they meet in the heat of a barroom brawl, their fates become permanently intertwined in the unlikeliest of ways.
1. Escape

**_Skeleton Women_**

* * *

 ** _Chapter One: Escape  
_**

* * *

"Take me with you," Ty Lee insisted, her eyes alight with this _passion_ that made his lip twist as he was unsure if he should laugh or not.

The cute little thing was carrying two bulky suitcases, clearly sporadically packed. Some bits of clothing were sticking out of the clasped shut sides. Her wide, innocent eyes were glittering in the morning light shining through the window of the tavern.

In front of her was a muscular male visitor from Caldera City, something that Ty Lee's town had not seen in a very long time. He was nothing more than a merchant, but the quaint stop on his road home treated him like a celebrity. How _modern_ he looked, how his hair was cut and what his clothes looked like.

He had to admit he liked it. He had to admit he liked this girl, but she was a one night stand that would weigh him down.

It was not out of disdain that he thought her proposition was ridiculous; she reminded him a bit of himself before he made his way to Caldera at last. But she also had no idea what she was getting into, and that the fact of the matter was that she would wind up a prostitute or servant of a rich family, and not the star she dreamt of being.

"You're talented. I'm not just saying that," he admitted, his voice deep and gravelly. "You know how to perform, I'm pretty sure you might not have bones or a sense of fear, and your voice is pretty. But that isn't enough. You have to have the connections and the gold pieces."

Ty Lee was not deterred for a fraction of a second. She _knew_ what she wanted from her life, and she _knew_ that she could get it.

"I'm more than talented. I am _ambitious_ and I am _optimistic_ and I _refuse_ to get knocked down," she said loudly, the suitcases trembling in her hands.

"Ambition is a dangerous thing, especially in Caldera." He hesitated then. Because no girlfriend had ever looked at him like that, much less a girl he one nighted. It made him feel the need to encourage her, against better judgment. "Confidence, on the other hand..."

Or maybe it was stubbornness. He could not quite tell, but he sighed all the same.

" _Take me with you_. You don't have any responsibility for me! I just need a ride is all!" Ty Lee shouted, this time dropping one of the suitcases. His hand rushed out a caught it.

He sighed again.

"Alright, alright. I'm not invested enough in this to try to force you to stay here." He shrugged and Ty Lee cheered, grinning. Like the child she clearly still was.

And that was the beginning of Ty Lee's real life.

She had not been _living_ for a whole fourteen years, despite being alive. Ty Lee was not the kind of person to live in this small little village forever, working at a stupid bar and inn with only her family to know and a few boring neighbors to meet.

Ty Lee had seen the whole world that her parents and sisters wanted, and it bored her instead of making her cozy. She wanted to take _risks_. She was the girl who climbed the tallest building in town and then did a handstand atop of it just to find something _fun_ to do. She was the girl who everybody talked about as if she wasn't something real.

But in Caldera, she knew, everybody was like that. The entire city was an amazing paradise that she thought about insistently.

It could not have been a better day.

* * *

Ty Lee could not have been more thrilled about arriving in the city.

She did not know which way to look or what to say or even how to breathe. Yes, she had definitely forgotten how to breathe the moment she leapt from the carriage without a word of thank you and immediately began to explore.

It was such an incredible place, with unbelievable sights. The people were dressed in fashions Ty Lee did not know existed, and she suddenly felt so foolish for her faded pink clothes. They definitely exposed her as someone from the country.

Everyone was in their own worlds, walking by without a single care. And Ty Lee never wanted to be one of them more.

She walked to the sidewalk, dropping her suitcases twice, and suddenly realized that she had nowhere to stay. And then realized that she did not care for a _second_ that she had nowhere to stay.

The more important question was where to look first, where to go first. She could smell the bread baking at a cute teashop, and she could feel the smoke drifting from the streets, and she could hear the infinite street performers, and could see her entire future lying in front of her.

Ty Lee softly exhaled and started walking.

* * *

It was afternoon at a burlesque club called _Simmer_ and a teenage boy was begging a teenage girl to stay.

"You can't leave me hanging like this," the Earth Kingdom immigrant pleaded, but it was of no use.

"I am leaving. And I'm leaving right now!" snapped the waitress, another import straight from the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. "This is the absolute _last_ I'm taking! It's not like anyone important is trying to keep me here!"

Haru frowned. "I know I'm just a serving boy, but I also know that we just lost two other waitresses and the boss isn't bothering to replace them."

"Of course, because we haven't been paid in exactly how long?" And before her friend could argue, she was on her way, stomping down the crowded and hot streets of Caldera City.

He sighed, forlorn. It really sucked to be a teenage runaway in a foreign country.

If he could quit, he would too.

* * *

Seven days passed as Ty Lee found a small inn to stay in, and just hoped that she could scrounge up the cash to pay the bill. The bad thing about running away and deciding to start from scratch with only a collection of birthday money was that she had nothing lined up and waiting.

She had once known a girl in her village who managed to move to Caldera. But that girl had a job as a maid settled, a place to live and family members already working in one of the factories near the city. Ty Lee had none of that, and her extensive family had no idea where she was.

The only thing to do was audition and show off. For a while she joined up with the street performers and it got her lots of silver pieces for food.

Every audition failed. And Ty Lee had no idea where she was going to, but she was excited and enticed by the bright lights of Caldera. Nothing stopped her for a second.

The thousandth bar she wandered into was the most dazzling of them all. She was still gawking at it as she sat down at the bar and tried to look like she belonged.

It was so beautiful. The smoke felt like mist entering a fabled land, and the walls kind of _sparkled_. All of the patrons were clearly important, the women beautiful, then men sitting straight and strong. Beautiful music, insanely, intensely beautiful women on the glass and metal stage.

"What, uh, is this place?" Ty Lee asked as she looked at the performers on the stage. Now, Ty Lee had sung, danced, contorted separately, but this was such a blend. The lights reminded her of the first type of circus Ty Lee saw as a child on Ember Island. Just dazzling.

The bartender glanced over at her. He looked like a teenager, and, admittedly, none of the half naked dancers looked over twenty either. Perhaps this was promising, or maybe it should have served as a warning that it was not the kind of place you could work in your whole life.

A stable job would have older people too.

"It's not the place a little girl should be in," he said as he strode over to her.

"I'm not a little girl," Ty Lee insisted, but her voice elevated in pitch just to spite her. "You can't be more than sixteen, anyway."

He smiled and laughed. "I'm Haru and it's pretty nice to meet you."

"Who's in charge here?" Ty Lee asked loudly. "I want to work here."

That made Haru look pretty concerned. But Ty Lee was determined as she heard the music swell and then saw exactly why she was too young and innocent looking to be in here. It was... sexual. Ty Lee felt something stir inside of her that she had not felt before. A growing heat within, a desire that she thought she was not supposed to feel.

Not for women, at least.

"The boss is upstairs, but I think I might be fired in an instant if I let some kid walk in there," Haru said and she bristled again at being called kid by another kid.

Ty Lee opened her mouth to argue more, but he was called away in a slight panic.

It was then that Ty Lee realized just how understaffed they were.

It was then that she had a marvelous idea.

"I," Ty Lee said, standing up, "I used to work at an inn and restaurant. Let me help out, okay?"

Haru knew he should argue with that, but he couldn't.

He gestured for her to come help.

* * *

As the night wore on, Ty Lee was sweating, but having a quite easy time with the job. Not to mention racking up tips the likes of which she had never seen.

Sure, it wasn't the glamour she went searching for here. But it _was_ something stable, and she got to watch the incredibly beautiful dancers while she waited on very important looking people. It was the best night of her life so far.

"Who's that?" asked another adolescent. Ty Lee turned to see a pale, very Fire Nation girl who was never on the stage. "I've never seen her."

She was intonation-less, and therefore didn't have the funny Caldera accent. Her eyes, Ty Lee realized with a shudder of panicked, were focused on the unofficial waitress.

"I'm Ty Lee," she said swiftly, walking over.

"I wasn't talking to you," said the girl, looking at Ty Lee as if she were some kind of gross bug.

But Ty Lee had gotten rather used to that as a transient here. And she refused to get knocked down.

"That's the boss's daughter," Haru said quietly.

"Who has been stuck here all night." She was clearly displeased about that. "There is no fathoming the depths of my hatred for this place. Can't pick me up, she says. Very busy she says..."

Ty Lee had no clue who _she_ was, and she somewhat thought that the boss's daughter was under the impression that Ty Lee and Haru could not hear her. Or at least not question her muttering to herself.

And Ty Lee says, "I'm just helping. Clean and all."

Mai looked to Haru. "Where's an adult?"

Haru shrugged. "A lot of people have been quitting lately..."

And Mai said, "Right. Speaking of quitting, she looks gullible and pathetic. Kind of cute, actually, if you like cute things."

 _She also can hear you_ , Ty Lee wanted to interrupt, but she just grinned.

"I am very gullible and pathetic," Ty Lee said brightly, batting her eyelashes. "And desperate too."

"You're just my girlfriend's type." Mai sighed. "Want to go meet my dad? He's holding me hostage while he interviews stupid waitresses."

"Okay!" Ty Lee followed Mai as if she were leading her to the palace and not an office in a gross sex club.

The upstairs was fixating to Ty Lee. There were such gorgeous paintings of past girls and women who got their start here. Famous ones; ones that Ty Lee had heard of.

She was nearly tripped by a girl leaving, rolling her eyes. Ty Lee knew that face; it was the face of someone who failed an audition. Concerned, Ty Lee just kept following and eventually was face to face with an overly dignified looking man.

"Dad, this is a girl who just decided to clean and serve everyone tonight for some reason." Mai jabbed her thumb lazily in Ty Lee's direction. "I think you should hire her."

Ty Lee looked at him with the wide, glittery eyes of a kitten begging for treats.

And all of that, he noted, for an expendable and useless job in his eyes.

"That is the kind of drive I'm looking for," he said and Mai was relieved.

"Can we leave now?" she asked and he ignored her.

"One question, how much do you expect to be paid?" he inquired and Mai rolled her eyes.

Because her father was obscenely wealthy, and he paid the dancers a quarter of what they deserved, and was pretty certain that poorer people just liked working for free. Everyone, including his daughter, was pretty certain that it was his miserly ways that lost him so many waitresses.

"Umm, I have this inn bill, you know, and really I just kind of, hm... I don't really know how much I'm actually worth." Ty Lee had never been _paid_ , working for her family. She just knew what she needed to stay afloat in the city.

He looked exalted. "I can easily pay that off. When can you start?"


	2. Shipwrecked

_**Skeleton Women**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter Two: Shipwrecked**_

* * *

While Ty Lee was paying off her stay in the inn, Azula was quite comfortably sitting in an apartment with a view of the street that had looked like an avalanche of terror to her when she first moved to the big city. It was not quite that long ago, but she had changed so much, and grown into herself so quickly, that she severed any and all ties to the young girl who thought she could just march up to the palace in Caldera and singlehandedly depose Fire Lord Azulon because she read some books.

No, things take more calculation than brooding about fantasies.

"Thank you for coming to pick me up. I see how busy you are," was how Mai decided to announce herself after entering without invitation.

"It is not my job to escort you from place to place."

"You could ask people to do it. Promise them some, uh, nice rocks that you don't own yet," Mai said as she threw her coat at the rack, missed, did not bother to pick it up and walked to sit beside Azula. "Isn't that how your business model works? You trade imaginary things for real things like this nice apartment and people who could pick up your girlfriend from her father's sleazy strip club?"

Azula did not quite _want_ to respond, because of how true it was. "They _are_ real things; I just don't have them yet."

Mai glanced around the gorgeous living conditions, with priceless swords on the walls and gorgeous lanterns and furniture and some of it was stained with blood, but most of it was built on promises. It was earned, in Azula's opinion, because the ability to make people believe in you that much was worthy of the prizes.

And she did have plans. Good ones. The type that only a dead girl and her connections could execute, but also the kind that require more than a few months to unfold.

"I know you'll get them. But it's funny," Mai admitted, shrugging and sighing.

* * *

Azula had only one pleasant memory of her life before she escaped the small, isolated island on which she was raised.

It was when she was nine years old and first learned to bend lightning, and it opened this new world to her that she had never before conceived of. A world in which she could fend for herself, in which she had value beyond what her father assigned her, in which, once she leeched all he could teach her, she was able to leave. Firebending was something she _always_ could do, since she was a little baby. Now, lightning, even if Azula had a very small world around her, she knew was rare and important.

Maybe she was happy before the lightning, and there were good memories that were poisoned by later learning harsh truths about them. She must have thought that her childhood was reasonably normal, and she loved her father long enough to make the concept of running away an issue of more than just logistics.

But the day she learned that she was a _princess_ , she began to understand this missing piece of herself that she always knew was present. She could only liken it to _betrayal_ , not being told about what should have been her birthright until she accidentally overheard a hushed conversation.

There was only so long that Azula could tolerate her father before she left. There was only so much she could take once she had the independence to know that she was strong enough, she was talented enough, she was clever enough and she was ambitious enough to make it on her own, unlike he told her.

She was two days from fourteen the night she escaped, it was burning. Her home was burning. No one died in the incident, but she had no regrets as she ran through the rain, the thick mud squelching beneath her feet. Well, her _brother_ pursued her but Azula did not care as she lit two trees he was trying to walk between, and the light blazed blue against the gray, cloudy backdrop again.

"I'm not trying to stop you!" he shouted, but she did not waste her breath, because she was truly uncertain if her plan would work once she put it into action.

Especially since she had to start early, at an inconvenient time, when the waves were choppy and the details she had been meticulous about were so uncertain. Azula was not panicking, or so she was telling herself as her heart pounded and she kept forgetting to breathe.

She reached the boathouse. Azula stopped when she arrived because it became even more impossibly surreal, and she thought that perhaps she was dreaming, or that she had lost her mind. But then it was proven very real when her brother smashed into her and nearly knocked her into the tossing waves of the ocean.

He grabbed her wrists and she prepared to burn him before she saw how genuine his eyes were, behind the scar. It was his face that made her hesitate, the mutilation that made her contemplate how valuable a disposable but loyal ally could be, especially when she has never left this prison.

"Are you coming with me?" Azula asked with white hot passion in her eyes.

"Yes," Zuko answered, and they entered the sweet smelling but smoky boathouse together, not intimidating by the rising waves waiting to consume them, because they were a better fate than what was behind them.

After their very tumultuous boat ride, the two siblings did not arrive as planned.

Alright, perhaps Azula did not have a plan for how she would arrive, since she had no clue where she was going. She just had a boat, and a sail she learned how to operate, and a means to fight, a bag packed with items she thought might be useful, and a brother she considered to be fairly useless except perhaps keeping her afloat if they got lost at sea.

Fortunately, they did not get lost at sea, but they did get shipwrecked. The shore was rocky, and the beach hurt Azula's bare feet when she got out of the chunks of wood that were her glorious escape plan. In the rising sun as the storm was passing, it did not look like such a beautiful, exciting boat anymore.

Zuko stared at her, expectant. Because she was supposed to have a clue. Because she was the one who decided to _do that_ and to _fight back_ like a lunatic and light ablaze their perfectly tranquil, if a bit painful, life with bright blue fire.

And now they were shipwrecked on some beach, dizzy, seasick, salty, soaking and without any proper clothes or a map of where they were going. He had some slim hopes that his very calculated and overly bookish sister would have _any idea_ but she was staring at the cliff in front of them as if it had answers.

"Please tell me you have a plan," Zuko muttered. "We're criminals in the Fire Nation. You know that, right?"

"No. We are not," Azula said, whipping around to face him and splashing his mouth with vile ocean water. "We are _not_ criminals because of our parents. And we are also not criminals unless we get _caught_ , so start walking and try to look pathetic. That shouldn't be hard for you."

Zuko wanted to fight with her, like they always had. But the moment he saw their home burning, the gazebo burning, the gardens burning, he knew that behaving like a child was not going to be an option much longer. He also knew that he had to follow her, not only because of father's wrath, but because Azula was competent in many ways, but she was not going to make it on her own.

"Where do we go? You must have had some vision in mind?" Zuko asked as he wondered what she meant by looking pathetic. Her bony body under the charred and soaked evening clothes and youthful face was enough to get her anything she desired. Maybe his scar could get him some pity thrown his war.

"Caldera, obviously," Azula replied as if that were so simple.

But she might as well have just told Zuko that she was planning on going to the moon. That sounded just about as attainable.

Okay, maybe Azula could have procured a rocket ship with those eyes and words. But Zuko just stayed quiet and maintained his objection to how excited his sister was about Caldera. It was going to be an ultimate let-down. He was not sure how he felt about being reliant on her, because he knew that she would cut him out of the picture as soon as she possibly could, but being preoccupied by that was not going to do him or anyone else any favors.

"How are you doing?" Zuko eventually decided to ask, even though he was not certain if he should or not.

Azula thought about whether she should respond, and decided it could not _hurt_.

"My mouth tastes bad, I have a headache and I just want to get to the city," she said indifferently, and they spent the rest of the ride in silence.

Once they arrived at the city, after traveling north for long hours with the cute young couple talking Zuko half to death and Azula's head gently hitting against the carriage window as she slept, Zuko again had that horrible twisting in his stomach.

"Thank you for the ride. We appreciate it," Azula said and she left before even asking for directions, or somewhere to stay or anything else, leaving Zuko agape for a minute before he ran after her.

He felt so stupid. Azula, trusting Azula was _so stupid_ , but so was staying behind after she did something so reckless and insane that it destroyed any chance of them returning to the life they had before. A life that might have been painful sometimes, but one that they knew and understood.

Azula walked forward, trying not to show her disorientation as she nearly hit into so many people. She had never seen so many in one place. Never. Not more than _five_ in a room, much less all of these, all of them dressed differently, speeding by, blurs of different faces that she could not take in all at once.

She might have been in over her head, but she refused to accept that, and kept walking.

Hours later, Mai's father never knew how _fortuitous_ it was that his daughter had a moment of generosity. Of course, he never learned from the example, but he was lucky.

Mai came home one day with a bedraggled stranger with her, holding the girl by the wrist. Her parents looked at her and seemed to not know what to do. On one hand, they worked very, very hard to shape their family into the embodiment of perfection, in order to cover up their ties to the underworld of Caldera.

On the other hand, Mai never had a friend before, and now she was holding a girl who looked extremely respectable beneath the mud and tangled hair. Her posture was impeccable, her skin pale and her eyes such a rare gold.

"I found this girl," she said, "and I like her."

"She likes them," whispered her father as Mai stared at them. Azula glanced at her expectantly, hoping that this was going to work. Zuko was waiting outside, because apparently he was not sympathetic and they would come back for him.

She was thirteen. And had no friends. And she _liked this very respectable looking girl_.

"Why are you such a mess, dear? How did your parents let you, uhm, get so...?" Mai's mother offered warmly and Mai tried not to gag on how fake it was.

"Because it's raining outside, and we were in the park, of course. I just got my hair done too, and well, just look at this," and Azula lifted up that ruined kimono that no longer could be discernable as nightclothes and revealed the wounds on her knee from the shipwreck. "Mai is my hero. Well, sort of. She did complain a lot, but I don't live very close and I don't want to die of infection. We've been talking and I actually think she's fun."

Mai and Azula would not use the word _fun_ , but it was true that they did hit it off when she saw the two clearly lost and really weird kids in the middle of the street. She was not sure if she _liked_ them, but Azula and Zuko were the most interesting thing that had ever happened in her insufferably boring life.

"I will clean it right up. And Mai will get you a change of clothes, dear. It's getting so late, as well..." her mother rambled on, and so it began.

After a few minutes of rearranging and rummaging, Azula was perched on a table and being examined by a woman who was a very fake type of nice. Or maybe she was just maternal; Azula was not really sure how mothers act, so maybe this woman was normal.

"What's your name?" Mai's mother asked. "I'm Ami and my husband is Lao."

Azula did not hesitate before replying, "Hira," because she of course had thought of _that_.

Her name was too strange. Of course, she could not go for too common; her features were too noble, but something too memorable would also be a misstep.

And Ami helped Azula get changed and started to clean her wound.

"How did you get those?" Ami asked, and Azula realized that none of her lies were necessary.

The moon white scars did the coercion for her. A few tears that were a little less than real, and soon, Azula and Mai were on her sleeping porch, telling Zuko that they were set for now.

Well, not him yet. But they were working on it.

Over the next few days, Azula's background, true or false, mattered little when she began to work up the charm on her new guardians. It was summer, and a hot one, and there was no school. She had Mai around to make sure nothing went horribly wrong. Azula had very little interaction outside of her father and a few faces who came and went.

Mai and Azula became an odd kind of close, the kind two girls who had never had friends before became. And they built a fort like children would, in which Zuko actually quite liked staying, even if he pretended to roll his eyes when the girls brought him furniture and made sure he was alive.

Azula was very unaware, due to her inexperience, that her charm was odd. That she _was_ standing out, and that while her lies were smooth, hard to question and easy to believe, they attracted attention and sometimes pointed directly to the fact that she was most certainly _not_ Hira.

She was even more unaware of Lao's deep roots in organized crime, and of the fact that he was watching her every move due to those ties.

"Can you bend?" Lao asked her and she nodded.

"Yes. Very well, actually," she said.

"You certainly don't lack for confidence." His eyes rested on the unlit candelabra on the table, and so, of course, Azula simply brushed her hand over it.

She had made a mistake, and it was _so foolish_. Bending was reflexive. It was all she was; it was all father thought she was. Now his eyes lingered until the candles returned to orange.

"Is that...?" he inquired and Azula could not go backwards now; she could only go further forwards.

"I can bend lightning too."

The skill was impressive, as were Azula's other talents.

There was no quitting, and soon she dove directly into the Kudeta Society with only two months of life experience and the thought that she was invincible. The belief that it was _true_ that no one knew about her, and that her anger and rage was justified because of that.

She thought she was going to use the Kudeta Society in order to overthrow Azulon and take what was stolen from her before she was even born.

But then, of all the people in Caldera, of all the people in the world, she ran into just one who recognized her. Just one who had been so close to Azulon that he had gone to visit that island, that island which Azula burned to the ground.

And that was where her life as an ambitious victim clawing her way to the top ended, and she began the distortion into the woman she was today.

* * *

A year later, a cold Azula, one who could put _princess_ before her name without it seeming ridiculous and childish looked over at her girlfriend.

"I'm waiting for a delivery. It is not you."

"Again. People who could pick me up," Mai said dispassionately, and Azula leaned to kiss her before a knock on the door interrupted them.

"As I said, I'm waiting for a delivery." And she strode over with the gait of a woman several years older than herself to open the door and stare down the poor delivery boy with those cold golden eyes that used to be wide and glittering with hope and excitement at the very idea of her future.


	3. Teenage Riot

_**Skeleton Women**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter Three: Teenage Riot**_

* * *

Azula purred, "I'm waiting for a delivery. It is not you."

"Again. People who could pick me up," Mai said dispassionately, and Azula leaned to kiss her before a knock on the door interrupted them.

"As I said, I'm waiting for a delivery." And she strode over with the gait of a woman several years older than herself to open the door and stare down the poor delivery boy with those cold golden eyes that used to be wide and glittering with hope and excitement at the very idea of her future.

She took it and examined the boy for a second. He looked both afraid and expectant of reward, but Azula simply shut the door in his face before walking back to Mai. As Azula began to hastily open the package, tearing the wrapping to shreds with her long nails, Mai leaned back and was glad she was uninterested.

Mai could see the dusk become the night, and Azula was still flipping through whatever papers she had delivered to herself. She was torn between asking and staying out of it, but the door rattled and the scraping of a key rung out through the apartment.

Zuko opened the door and walked inside.

"Are those the stolen letters?" Zuko asked the second he shut the door and Azula glared at him. Mai watched raptly while she lay back on the sofa.

"Oh, just announce to the _whole world_ that I have these." Azula rolled her eyes, but Zuko just shrugged.

No one was going to hear them in this building. _And_ there was the fact that none of them alarmed anyone very much, save for stares at Zuko's face and stares at Azula's body.

"What do they say?" Zuko asked and Azula sighed.

"Most of them are useless correspondence, but I'm sure I can extract something from it," Azula said smoothly as she tried to organize the letters in a more efficient way.

"Zuko brought food," Mai said and he did hold up the bag, as if it were a tiger-monkey he killed with his bare hands.

Azula rolled her eyes and went back to trying to decipher the letters that required a good deal of effort to get.

* * *

What sounds like a war in the streets outside of her window woke Ty Lee.

She sat straight up, catching her breath. Ty Lee only _just_ got used to how loud the city was in comparison to her sleepy little town. But this sounded like much more than the morning rush or boastful street peddlers, and so her pulse began to race as she leapt from her rough blankets and pressed her nose against the window.

It was nearing dusk, and it was almost time for Ty Lee to go to work, but she stopped thinking about work when she saw that people were _brawling_ in front of the pawn shop across the street. No one was containing them, and it was getting out of hand, with five on either side, or so it seemed as she gawked.

"Third time this season," a young female voice remarked behind Ty Lee, and she jumped, smashing her nose into the glass and cursing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." Ty Lee turned to see On Ji, the innkeeper's daughter, looking up at her mother's tenant with a small smile on her lips.

"What's happening out there?" Ty Lee asked softly, rubbing her hand fiercely against the window to try to get a better view. On Ji frowned faintly as she saw the thick layer of dust that she knew she would be cleaning up later.

"Uh, just protesters." On Ji waved her hand and hopes to brush the topic away.

"They're fighting." Ty Lee just saw one of the men in dark green clothes get his nose punched in by another. It made her cringe.

"The guards always break them up," On Ji said, trying to reassure the beautiful young woman she has been watching from afar for so long.

Ty Lee looked away as the sound became louder and louder. "What are they protesting for?"

On Ji shrugged, and then frowned, and then reclaimed her small smile. "They're protesting Fire Lord Azulon."

"I never heard..." Ty Lee never heard anything outside of the paintings she saw in the only official building other than _farms_ near her home. She knew Azulon was a grand and revered Fire Lord; she did not imagine that there would be protests like this.

"He's..." On Ji looked mildly uncomfortable, and so Ty Lee did not push her. "He's a good Fire Lord. They're mad about the war sometimes, other times about stuff around here that just doesn't get looked at. They're just angry people."

"That's such a sad thing to be," Ty Lee lamented softly before pulling all the way away from the window and walking to the other side of her room to get dressed. She thought she heard the crunch of bone from here, and she could not longer stomach the sight.

The idea that there was a riot on the other side of these back alley streets was very unnerving to Ty Lee, but she took a few deep breaths. Tonight was night three of waitressing, and she had to be at her best every single night. Not that she would miss watching the dancers and talking to the patrons in that smoky room for the world.

The idea that no one in the inn was disturbed, and the girl who can't be more than twelve had a laissez-faire attitude towards the violence was enough to make Ty Lee feel slightly concerned about what everyone told her about cities. Maybe they were right about the violence.

"Is it immigrants who are upset?" Ty Lee asked as she tries to pick out decent clothes. She did not have anything that is worthy, and it made her frustrated.

"No, actually, it's mostly people in the Fire Nation who used to own the land, like the Apai Mountain Range, but it got taken when Sozin industrialized and unified the country." On Ji swelled with pride at her knowledge of current events, while Ty Lee just nodded along.

Ty Lee knew about _that_ , but she had no idea people cared about that kind of thing in Caldera. Ty Lee could remember watching people discuss the politics over drinks, and often it did come up. The people had to sacrifice some of what was theirs in order to better the country.

That was Sozin's mission, and many people did not disagree with it, despite him being long dead and burned. Ty Lee did see the unsettling mines popping up and the farms becoming tied into the system, but she tried not to pay attention to that kind of thing.

Ty Lee thought about what the proper Caldera answer would be. She came up with, "Right. It's nice that they're not executed."

"Right," On Ji agreed with another smile. "You never told me I shouldn't be in your room."

Ty Lee shrugged. "It's nice to have people around. I grew up in a house with six sisters, and I've never had so much space or time to myself before. I don't even know what to do with it."

On Ji looked into the mirror and adjusted her hair behind Ty Lee as the elder girl did her make-up for the evening.

"You came here to be a dancer?" On Ji asked and Ty Lee nodded while unscrewing the cap of blush. "I would love to be a dancer. It looks like so much fun."

"You've never done it yourself?" Ty Lee inquired in surprise and On Ji nods.

From the look on her face, Ty Lee decided not to pester her any further on the topic.

* * *

Mai looked at Azula and sighed. Then she sighed again. And once more before Azula finally looked up at her.

"You've been staring at those for three days now."

"I'm making progress," Azula snapped, yet again.

"Come out with me and Zuko," Mai said as she gently rested her hands on Azula's shoulders. Azula felt as cold as ice and as slick as it too. "Change your clothes first."

"You may not order me around," Azula said and Mai did not respond until her girlfriend got up and went to go locate clothing.

* * *

Ty Lee could not help but be curious about the girl she saw with the boss's daughter. The young man between them had a hideous scar, but was handsome save for that. The girl, however, walked in and filled the room with a presence that Ty Lee could not explain, and that had no aura colors to apply to it either.

Some people were just capable of doing that. Ty Lee could open doors with just a smile, but other people could open doors and change the emotions of everyone in the room.

That girl was one of them.

Haru leaned over the counter. "Be extra nice to them. Mai is obviously the boss's daughter, but the boy and girl are close with them."

Close with them and deep into the underworld of the Kudeta Society.

"I'm nice to everybody," Ty Lee said, flashing a glamorous smile at him.

He just laughed and shook his head. She might do alright.

* * *

It did not go alright. Ty Lee stammered, she stumbled, and she made a complete fool of herself. And now she was hiding and pretending to be very busy cleaning dishes.

She nearly smashed one of the plates into Haru's face when he snuck up behind her.

"You got further than most people do," Haru said, still looking entertained. Ty Lee glared and splashed him weakly with the soapy water. He rubbed it off. "You _did_. They're hard."

"I've never been so embarrassed in my life," Ty Lee said quietly, staring at her soaked hands. "I sounded like a moron. She probably thinks I'm crazy."

Haru noted the distinct singular form of _she_ , but before he could ask any more, they were interrupted.

"There's a fight. The Kudeta and the Triad ─ !" shouted the busboy at Haru, and the bartender instantly sprung into action with his earthbending.

Ty Lee stood there, motionless, until she heard the crash of thunder that rattled the room. _That_ nearly gave her a heart attack. She heard broken glass, a table, screams. She could feel the heat, and she panicked before grabbing a knife from the block, as if it would help her at all.

She crept forward, hiding behind the bar as she watched something much more nauseating than the riots she saw on the streets. Ty Lee squeezed her eyes shut, and thought she should wait it out. There was no point in fighting; she did not feel very brave.

But Ty Lee could not help turning around the corner to look at what was happening. The girl was bending a bright, transfixing cerulean color. Ty Lee's lips parted as she watched the lightning, watched the boy and his fast muscles and fast bursts of fire, watched knife-work that Ty Lee could not do with the one she was clutching. Those opposing them were nearly as equipped.

Ty Lee drew attention by staring for too long, and then she had two men coming at her, grabbing her by the shoulders as she jabbed the knife backwards and missed, letting it fall onto the floor and slide away out of her reach.

She gasped, feeling utterly and completely doomed.

It was when she was being dragged away that she blacked out.

* * *

Ty Lee opened her eyes to see the silence around her. She fell into a more comfortable seated position and exhaled. The room smelled so strongly of liquor, fire and blood that it made Ty Lee more lightheaded.

"Did you see that?" and variations were murmured before Ty Lee was grabbed again, this time by the boy of the trio who she stammered and blabbered like a fool in front of.

She felt so dizzy as she stared at what she thought she might have done.

The room was speckled with the corpses of the people who obviously had planned an attack on their enemies. Ty Lee's eyes found Haru as he stared, his hands tightly clutching the bar.

 _Was that me?_ Ty Lee wanted to ask, but she was too breathless. She just allowed herself to be pushed into a carriage, against the plush seats, and she stared at her blooded and trembling hands in shock.

The girl, the one Ty Lee thought was formidable, and beautiful and so sexual, had a gaze fixed on Ty Lee that she did not like.

Ty Lee struggled to keep her eyes open as they left the familiar district in Caldera.


	4. Surrender

_**Skeleton Women**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter Four: Surrender**_

* * *

"Wake up," demanded a sharp voice of Ty Lee. She could not summon the strength to open her eyes. "Wake up! Give me the bucket, Lee, dammit."

Ty Lee's eyes opened the minute the ice water hit her. Then she felt the strain and chafing pain of chains on her wrists. She was on the ceiling, on _a_ ceiling, of a basement-scented place that she did _not_ want to be in. This was definitely not the plan when she ran away to Caldera City.

"Good. Look at me," said the gruff man who totally had no right to speak to Ty Lee that way. "Why do I have to repeat myself so many times today? Look at me."

Ty Lee did. She wanted to know what was happening, even if that meant examining this dude's ugly mug.

"Hi," Ty Lee slurred. His lips twitched with a half-smile; he looked about to laugh.

"You really have no idea why you're here."

"I don't even know where here is," Ty Lee admitted, spinning ever so slightly on her chains. She loved it when people did not take her seriously at all; it was pretty invaluable in horrifying situations like this.

" _Here_ ," said the very unattractive man, "is the dungeons of the Fire Nation Royal Palace. It once was a fortress; did you know that? The Fire Nation was three different provinces of fire, and this one was the strongest. The palace was built—"

"Stop being boring! Ugh!" Ty Lee whined loudly.

"I am a master of interrogation. Do you know what that means?"

"No! But I do know that you want to torture me so I will totally honestly say that _I don't know anything_!"

He did laugh this time. "I don't doubt that. Agni, this one is useless. Fire Lord Azulon might even be entertained by it."

"I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I totally saw tons of corpses!"

"That _you_ killed, or so I hear. Who trained you?"

"Nobody. I'm from nowhere in a dumb farming and mining town and I somehow managed to get to Caldera! I didn't expect this! I wanted to _dance_ , not… get tortured."

He laughed again. "That's understandable." Then he barked, "Lee, make her stop spinning."

A man she could not see grabbed her by the waist and held her in place.

"What do you think I know?" Ty Lee asked breathlessly as her vision focused on the dank room. Oh, this was even worse than she thought, and she thought it was bad.

"Do you know anything about the Kudeta Society?"

"Maybe? I learned their name and people told me to be nice to them."

"Right. We stole you from them. You were unconscious in the carriage the Royal Guard raided. Which means you have _something_ to do with them. The girl we are looking for took extra care to defend you. Do you know her?"

"Please be more specific."

"Azula."

Ty Lee screwed her face up in thought. "No. Never heard that. I heard about _Mai_. Are you looking for Mai?"

He stared at her. "I didn't even show you a knife."

"I don't really care about any of those people."

"Hm. Lee, shackle her in. I'm going to talk to the Commander about this."

Well, Ty Lee had to admit, that was a close call. She wondered if she would have told the secrets of people she did care about to avoid torture. She hoped she was not that selfish.

She really did.

* * *

Azula stared at the ceiling. She was lying down, because Mai and Zuko would not let her get up. Something about breaking her ribs, which was truly not enough to stop her from interrogating every last bastard who could have sold her out to the Royal Guard.

"It was probably the Triad."

"Why? The Triad came to kill us already. We were two hours away from them when we were robbed."

"I don't care about us being robbed. I care about _you_ getting out of the city. You do understand how easily they could have followed you, princess," Mai said.

"You sound almost like you care about me," Azula snapped. "I won't leave the city until I know who did this to me. I won't leave the city until my affairs are in order and the city belongs to me. I won't leave the city until the comet arrives and I get what I deserve."

"It was an innocent Triad attack, but it drew the attention of people who could crush us like bugs. Fire Lord Azulon obviously knows what you've been doing."

"I suspected as much," Azula interrupted viciously.

"He'll bring you down fast. I bet he already has your people being interrogated. You and Zuko need to leave until this calms down." Mai kissed Azula as if that would make her _melt_. Azula taught her that; she knew it well. "Do this. Don't be stupid."

"I am going to what I always do," Azula said, attempting to sit up. "I am going to turn misfortune into an advantage. I worked too hard to be undone by a greedy Triad. If Azulon wants me, he shall have me."

Mai and Zuko exchanged a glance.

Azula closed her eyes.

* * *

A month had passed, Lu Ten assigned a task force to rooting out the Kudeta. Most of them were sleazy enough to be forthcoming. A strip club owner even sold out his own daughter, but she seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Ty Lee left the dungeons and didn't even lose a fingernail. She thought something terrible would happen to her, but it did not.

The Royal Family had many methods of destroying their enemies. From within was always a favorite, even though they had such significant armies. Ty Lee was in the right place at the right time for once; she was supposed to find the missing trio of a prince, princess and wicked genius.

Or so they were rumored to be.

Ty Lee was perfect material, they said, even though she was punished regularly for messing up. She was gorgeous, an unknown and they called her clever. No one ever thought Ty Lee was smart, and she wore that and her bubbly personality as armor.

 _A natural_ , said a woman who hit her with a switch about a thousand times for being stupid.

She was a maid during the day, which was not as bad as her life back home. But her lessons were in high culture.

They did not tell her, but they were making her a spy.

Azula healed as she watched her empire crumble.

She waited to strike back.

She found that day as soon as she prepared herself.

"You and Zuko leave. I can't have him get his hands on anyone but me, and Zuko is more threatening to old men. Mai, you're my girlfriend and I can't have them know that," Azula said, not knowing that they already did. "Find my people and keep doing what I have been doing. I think I'm manipulative enough to charm them and gut them from the inside."

Mai and Zuko were not fond of the idea, but Azula had made it clear that it was her plan. They both did know that Azula was very good at using people for her own ends, and they both did know that Azulon and Iroh would likely not be any different from any powerful man.

They did not tell her, but they believed she would succeed and use the comet to become Fire Lord.

* * *

When she turned herself in, dressed in the best rags she could find and with her eyes sparkly and wide, Azula refused to kneel. She may have been handing herself over, but she would not abandon her dignity that easily. If they must cut her down for this act of defiance, so be it.

She was in the throne room that she had never seen but she had imagined. She saw three men sitting behind a veil of flames and she imagined how good they would look in a shade of cerulean. This was a much more thrilling plan than her old one.

Azulon spoke more quickly than she thought he would. "I did not know of your existence until you began trying to undo my empire."

She was prepared for that presumption. It was of the utmost importance that he thought she was a desperate, innocent little girl who just wanted to be rescued. Which should not be exceptionally hard; Azula played that role well.

"I tried to make a living on the streets by playing up my royal blood. I have no need for your empire; I have need for money, security and the life I choose. You promise that to your people, do you not?" She spoke like an articulate but innocent fourteen year old.

Of course they bought it.

Azulon studied her closely. The elderly Fire Lord believed that she was truthful; he believed that she knew not what she had done.

He said, however, "You must understand that the royal blood may give those who seek to uproot me hope."

Azula was prepared for that too.

She thought this would be harder.

"Of course I do. Those were the kind of people I used to get what I want. If you offer me three things I desire, I would silence that discontent. I will kneel to you if you promise to give me not what the title of princess deserves but what your own blood deserves. I am your granddaughter and the nightmare I was born into was your doing—"

"Treasonous—" Lu Ten begins but Azulon holds up a hand to silence him.

"I gave your father those three things," Azulon protested, staring into her soul. Good thing she did not have one.

She retorted swiftly, "And he gave me as many scars as he could fit on my skin. I do not blame you for his exile, since I have no idea why he was banished with my mother. I sought answers and found none. I burned my way out of that prison and hitched a ride to Caldera. I was going to look for your shelter but that was evidently not an option. A nobleman's daughter played with me in a park and her family took me in. Her father was a traitor, and I learned then what game I should play to survive.'

Azulon tapped one finger on his weathered lip for an excruciating period of time. "You would forsake them, and serve me, if I accept you as my granddaughter?"

Azula laughed sweetly. "Yes. I am a very selfish girl, you will find."

He did not laugh, but he nodded at her and she saw his shoulders loosen slightly. "I am a very selfish man. It must be inherited. Iroh; this is your choice. She would be your ward, not mine."

Iroh hesitated and examined her for what felt like a century. "I would gladly adopt this clever young woman, so long as she is not dangerous."

Azula licked her lips. "I am very dangerous… Uncle. But I would not be dangerous to the man kind and generous enough to adopt me. I only ever wanted home and family."

The lies worked. Spirits, they were easy to exploit.

Only one person in the room seemed unconvinced as Azula knelt before the flames.

Her cousin, Lu Ten.

* * *

"She isn't even trained yet, your grace," stammered the tutor overseeing his student of two months.

Lu Ten was meeting with the man in charge of their best spies, best assassins, best honeypots. But he was asking for their newest recruit with the least experience and least idea what she was getting into. It made the old master sweat, but the crown prince remained stoic and composed in the shadowy pantry.

"She can learn as she goes," Lu Ten says. "I've heard good things about her since her capture, and I think she might be my cousin's type from what my sparrowkeets tell me." From what the father of her girlfriend told him. "A spider-snake is in the garden of my family and I want her beheaded. Let me talk to the girl… your skeleton girl."

Girl was appropriate, the tutor believed. Ty Lee was no skeleton woman. Not yet.

Azula was. It was not a fight the tutor believed Ty Lee could win, but he did as his prince told him to do.

* * *

Ty Lee was eager to meet Lu Ten. She squeaked some flirtatious comments and he enjoyed them.

He thought she would stand her own against Azula, if only by seeming nonthreatening. She was sweet and he turned up his charm tenfold, because she would not stop ogling him for the entirety of their walk through the deserted corridors.

"Azula is dangerous. She's a better spy than any of the girls you've been trained with. You're not poisoned by exposure yet. You're new and I don't think she would expect someone so… sweet, to be a person like herself. She doesn't play innocent as well as you do," Lu Ten said.

"Who's playing innocent, your grace?" Ty Lee chimed with an airy smile.

"I think I believe you can undo her before she undoes my father or grandfather. You two will meet by accident at the gala three days from now," Lu Ten said. "You will learn everything about her before you even see her, do you understand?"

"Yes," Ty Lee said with a small smile. "I do."

He kissed her cheek and she flushed bright red.

She certainly graduated from skeleton in a dungeon to skeleton woman quite smoothly.


End file.
